Last chance for NHL, NHLPA to strike best deal for both sides

Is anybody strong enough to look weak? Is anybody smart enough? Because somebody will have to budge for the NHL and the NHL
Players' Association to reach a labor agreement, and this is the last chance to strike the best deal for everybody involved.

View gallery

.

The start of the NHL regular season is in jeopardy, and a whole lot more.

The league and union just spent three days dithering over details while entrenched on the big issues, and they are scheduled to meet
again Tuesday in New York. It's October. The season is supposed to start Oct. 11. The league is on the cusp of canceling real
games.

Are these guys going to reach a compromise in a couple of months, when they could have reached one today without losing short-
term money and risking long-term growth? Or is this lockout going turn into a battle of wills – each side digging in deeper,
waiting for the other to break, going for the win – snowballing into a larger disaster?

This is a real deadline, and that calls for real proposals, and that calls for leadership. You've got to think one or both sides will make a
last-ditch effort this week, but it's got to be a genuine effort to save the start of the season, not just a transparent effort to save face.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Don Fehr both are experienced, accomplished, hard-nosed. Bettman
is the man who brought the salary cap to hockey; Fehr is the man who fought the salary cap in baseball.

Both have top lieutenants. Bettman has deputy commissioner Bill Daly, a veteran of the lockout that canceled the 2004-05 season.
Fehr has special counsel Steve Fehr, his brother and right-hand man from his baseball days.

They all know the dance, the art and nuance of negotiation, and the hope is that they have been saving their best for last. Bettman
and Don Fehr have met in private, if only briefly. Daly and Steve Fehr have met in private, far more extensively. The four have been
in a room together alone.

They should have been throwing out off-the-record ideas, hinting at how much further their side could go and reading the others'
reactions, so they could go back to their constituents, come up with a solution and present it in a formal session.

But the fear is that these men and their constituents are too proud to back down, that this is a game of high-stakes poker in which
everybody wants all the chips. Daly has said repeatedly that the league is waiting for the union to make the next proposal. Steve
Fehr has pointed out that this isn't ping-pong.

Nobody wants to be pressured. Nobody wants to be impatient. Nobody wants to move too far too fast. Nobody wants to look weak,
because it could be used against them if this doesn't work out now. And so nobody has made a formal proposal since Sept. 12
– almost three weeks ago now.

The owners and players have been maintaining positions they know full well are unacceptable to the other side. Somebody has to
show the creativity and courage to craft a proposal that could be realistically accepted by both sides. That doesn't mean total
capitulation. That means moving far enough on enough issues that the other side will move, too, sparking an actual give-and-take.

There is no reason the NHL cannot make the next proposal. Although the league made the last one, Bettman said that proposal would
come off the table when the collective bargaining agreement expired Sept. 15, so the league actually has nothing on the table at all at
the moment. Although the players haven't budged much off their opening proposal, the league hasn't given them incentive to move. All
the league has done to this point is give the players incentive to fight.

The owners asked the players to reduce their percentage of hockey-related revenue to as low as 43, then 46, then 47 – when
the players used to make 57 and the league has posted seven years of record HRR. The owners have kept asking the players to
take an immediate pay cut, when the players swallowed a 24-percent rollback last time and their No. 1 principle in these negotiations
is "no rollback." The owners have kept attacking contract lengths, arbitration rights and free agency eligibility. They are not
intimidating the players; they are ticking them off.

The players feel they already have shown weakness and are paying for it. They broke in 2004-05 when they accepted the salary cap
and that massive rollback, and they made major concessions in their opening offer this time in an effort to make a deal. Not only do
they feel they have moved far enough, they feel if they give up more, the league will ask for even more. They believe their proposal,
because it includes more revenue sharing than the owners' does, addresses the real problem – the disparity in money from
market to market. That’s why they haven’t budged much.

There is no reason the NHLPA cannot make the next proposal, though. While the players' proposal projects they would receive much
less than 57 percent of HRR going forward, that assumes the business will keep growing – and at a healthy rate. Once
regular-season games are canceled, no matter whom you blame, the business will start shrinking, at least in the short term. The
players made $1.87 billion in salary last season and want raises of 2 percent, 4 percent and 6 percent the next three seasons,
compounded, guaranteed. How will they be able to get that next week, let alone next month, let alone next year? Why has that
become a sacred line in the sand?

One last time: No immediate pay cut for the players, but no raise, either. Freeze their $1.87-billion salary from last season. Pay the
contracts that have already been signed as they were supposedly intended, by capping escrow, by deferring some payments,
whatever. Scale the players' percentage of HRR to about 50 percent over time. Outlaw front-loaded contracts that circumvent the
salary cap, maybe make some other minor adjustments, but otherwise leave the contracting rules alone. Increase revenue sharing
more than the owners want, but not as much as the players want. Drop the puck.

If regular-season games are canceled this week, that does not mean the entire season will be canceled. It's still early October, and
there will still be time to save some of the season. It does not mean Don Fehr will challenge the salary cap, either. As much as he
would love to fight the cap personally, he and the players know what that would mean practically. The owners might turn around and
challenge guaranteed contracts. The war would go nuclear. We're not at that point. Yet.

But if nobody makes a real proposal this week – an honest-to-goodness attempt at compromise instead of some tactical move
– nobody really knows what will happen. Nobody really knows when the next pressure point will be and how the sides will
react. Nobody knows when games will be played. Nobody knows whether the fans will return the way they did last time, especially in
the markets that need help.

CINCINNATI (AP) -- Charlie Morton pitched five-hit ball for seven innings, Neil Walker hit a review-aided home run and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds 3-0 Sunday in a testy game in which benches cleared after stars Andrew Mcutchen … More »

The plan to give Peyton Manning a breather at training camp is designed to pay dividends not only for the five-time MVP but also his backup. Entering the final year of his rookie contract, Brock Osweiler will get his biggest chance yet to prove … More »

After more than a week of weightlifting, horseback riding, swimming, soccer matches and dozens of other competitions, 6,500 athletes from 165 countries braced themselves Sunday for perhaps the most emotional Special Olympics World Games event on … More »

General manager Scot McCloughan says a ''thorough, thorough, thorough'' vetting of Junior Galette left the Washington Redskins ''very comfortable bringing him on board,'' despite off-field problems that led the New Orleans Saints to cut the outside … More »